Joep van Lieshout

Joep van Lieshout has constructed a complex edifice within the realm of contemporary art. It is not made up of paintings or sculptures, nor of performance pieces, installations or body art. Instead, it is an amalgamation of many of the elements taken from these traditions and fused into something that one can use or inhabit. It is a deformed architecture of everyday life.To make sense of such a deformed structure, it might be useful to trace its origins. Van Lieshout, who is roughly my age, grew up in the Netherlands as an orderly, organized society where everything and everyone was in its place. His art traces and tracks the way in which we reacted to the knowable and predictable architecture of everyday life. Aaron Betsky, excerpted from his essay, "The Deformation of Everyday Life: A Short History of Joep van Lieshout's Architecture," published in Atelier van Lieshout.

When Joep van Lieshout (b. 1963) founded the art and architecture studio that bears his name, he set in motion what has been described as "a new Dutch architectural style… dirty, delicious and direct."

When Joep van Lieshout (b. 1963) founded the art and architecture studio that bears his name, he set in motion what has been described as "a new Dutch architectural style… dirty, delicious and direct." Now Atelier Van Lieshout is 10, and the first major monograph devoted to it, A Manual (1997), has been sold out for years. This new overview brings readers into AVL's contrarian applied art via luxuriously appointed "mobile homes," autonomous communes and surreal art projects, with equal time given to AVL-Ville (2001), a "free state" in Rotterdam's port, complete with its own flag, its own constitution and its own currency, and the revealing minutia of AVL's portfolio, from furniture to the "Bar Rectum," a perverse take on the Oscar-Meyer Weiner Mobile. The idea of art that can be used for a self-sufficient and independent lifestyle hits a uniquely high point in AVL-Ville, a culmination of all the work AVL has done before. And it lives on: After a successful and tumultuous year of work, AVL has recently located its first AVL-Ville export product in Park Middelheim in Antwerp: the AVL Franchise Unit. This richly illustrated survey tracks AVL's serious and often provocative portfolio through a crucial period in its growth and development.